Category Archives: Ron Paul

The Ron Paul presidential campaign of 2008 began in early 2007 when Congressman Ron Paul of Texas announced his candidacy for the 2008 Republican nomination for President of the United States. Initial opinion polls during the first three quarters of 2007 showed Ron Paul consistently receiving support from 3% or less of those polled. In 2008, Paul's support among Republican voters remained in the single digits, and well behind front-runner John McCain.[1]

During the fourth quarter of 2007, Paul was the most successful Republican fundraiser, bringing in approximately $20 million.[2][3] He also received the most money from the armed services of any candidate in the fourth quarter.[4] Ron Paul's campaign set two fund raising records: the largest single day donation total among Republican candidates and twice receiving the most money received via the Internet in a single day by any presidential candidate in American history.[5] Paul's run for president is also noted for its grassroots social networking, facilitated by the Internet.[6] Ron Paul's enthusiastic supporters were noted by the media, who called them "Paulites".[7][8] Paul receives most of his contributions from individuals, at ninety-seven percent; compare to other candidates.[9]

As of February 5, 2008, Paul had won sixteen delegates to the Republican National Convention, placing him last amongst the four Republican candidates still in the race at that time.[10] The campaign projected on February 6 to have secured at least 42 delegates to the national convention.[11] On March 4, 2008, John McCain earned enough pledged delegates to become the Republican presumptive nominee, but Ron Paul decided to continue his run.[12] Ron Paul released The Revolution: A Manifesto on April 29, which collected essays based on thoughts that arose from his experiences running for president in 2008. The book went on to be a #1 bestseller among political books on Amazon.com[13] and the New York Times nonfiction list.[14]

On June 12, 2008, Paul announced that he was ending the presidential campaign, investing the more than $4.7 million of remaining campaign contributions to build up the new advocacy group Campaign for Liberty.[15] Although he suspended his campaign, he appeared on the ballot in Montana[16] and Louisiana[17] in the 2008 general election. He was also listed in some states as a write-in candidate. He received over 47,000 votes, giving him the eighth highest popular vote total in the election.[18]

These are events related to Ron Paul's official 2008 campaign. For events related to the independent grassroots movement around him (the "Ron Paul Revolution"), see Grassroots campaign efforts.

Ron Paul formed a presidential exploratory committee on January 11.[19] He also acquired data on public interest in his running for President around February 19.[20] Based on the results from the exploratory committee and polling, Paul officially entered the race on March 12.[20][21]

In a February CNN landline opinion poll, Paul was the candidate with the least name recognition besides John H. Cox.[22] On March 20, Paul signed the American Freedom Agenda Pledge.[23][24]

On June 30, 2007, in Des Moines, Iowa, Iowans for Tax Relief and the Iowa Christian Alliance invited all Democratic Party candidates and all Republican presidential candidates except Paul to a presidential candidates forum. Six candidates appeared: Mitt Romney, Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, Mike Huckabee, Tommy Thompson, and Tom Tancredo.[25] In July, the New York Times wrote that Paul's "message draws on the noblest traditions of American decency and patriotism."[26]

Paul participated in the Ames Straw Poll in Ames, Iowa on August 11. He ranked fifth out of 11 candidates, receiving 9.1 percent of the votes.[27][28] According to John Fout, on TheStreet.com, Paul "shocked people in Iowa" by receiving more than 9 percent of the vote after making only three trips to Iowa, releasing ads only one week before the poll, and for beating Tommy Thompson, who visited all 99 counties in Iowa.[29] In an interview about the results of the straw poll, fellow candidate Mike Huckabee, who placed second, said that Ron Paul was the candidate most likely to overtake him nationally, saying, "I'm keeping an eye on him."[30]

During the Straw Poll Ron Paul supporters gathered to form a parade, that marched hundreds of people many of whom bore colonial costumes and drum and fife instruments, flags and other around the ISU grounds for hours chanting back and forth slogans that would later be used in many marches and events throughout the campaign.

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I see Colorado recently legalized marijuana. Good for them. It should improve the scenery next time I drive through.

In 2009, I decided it might be fun to drive to California to visit my brother. It was a great trip across this great country, but one thing marred it. As I made my way west, I saw lots of billboards warning of the dangers of meth. Nothing quite spoils the view like a 10-foot-tall photo of a speed freak whos lost her hair and teeth.

After I got to my brothers house in Oakland, I decided it might be useful to do some research into the recreational drug most popular in California. Thats sold in various "clinics" as "medical marijuana."

I use the quotations advisedly. The young hipsters scoring at the coffeehouse I visited did not look the least bit ill. But so what? Marijuana wont rot their teeth. You wont find me crying in my beer at the local brewpub if the coffeehouse down the block sells pot to potheads.

The feds felt differently, however, and in April of 2012, agents descended on the "Oaksterdam University" complex that ran the coffeehouse and hauled off the teaching materials.

As a conservative, I got a good laugh out of that. All of those agencies are under the control of a president who used to smoke pot when he was young. And I would imagine most of the customers at the coffeehouse voted for Barack Obama.

Some young people are smarter than that, however. Four days after that raid, about 8,000 of them showed up at the University of Californias Berkeley campus for a Ron Paul-for-president rally. In 2012, the Texas Republican was the only candidate in either party who called for the federal government to get out of the drug enforcement racket.

It should be no surprise that a conservative Republican would oppose the war on drugs. The war traces back to the expansion of federal power under Franklin Roosevelts New Deal, when the Food and Drug Administration was charged with regulating pretty much everything Americans ingest.

For the remainder of the century, the only meaningful objection to this sort of thing among major political figures came from conservative William F. Buckley. In debates over drug policy, Buckley would get politicians of both parties sputtering by saying things such as: "If every American who had ever taken a proscribed substance were put in jail, there would be almost as many beds in American jails as there are beds in American homes."

Buckley also pointed out what might be called the Golden Rule of Smuggling: the more difficult the government makes it to bring big things into the country, the more likely the smugglers are to import small things. The federal government started out in the 1960s trying to cut off the supply of weak marijuana from Mexico. They largely succeeded, but by the 1980s the smugglers switched to cocaine, creating the crack epidemic. Meanwhile the meth producers started cranking out cheap speed.

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Ron Paul was right; there are cracks in the argument of the Drug War crowd

The Fed's decision to reduce its massive asset-buying program by $10 billion this month was not a "serious move," Paul said, because the Fed had also given assurances about maintaining ultralow interest rates. That policy helped the stock market achieve record gains in 2013, which seemed to be the intent, he added.

"They think the stock market will translate into a healthy economy," Paul said. "I don't happen to believe that, and most of the people who are unemployed, the lower third of our population, don't believe that."

(Read more: Six years post-recession, a tale of two Americas)

Often described as dovish, Yellen doesn't seem poised to reduce the Fed's nearly $4 trillion balance sheet, he said.

"She is really an inflationist," Paul said. "All the market has to do is say 'boo' and there will be no more tapering and interest rates will stay at zero until the the market overwhelms this mismanagement and central economic planning by the Federal Reserve."

(Read more: For Yellen, headaches are only starting)

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Paul: Fed vote reveals cracks in economy

From Ron Paul

Iraq: The Liberation Neocons Would Rather Forget

Remember Fallujah? Shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US military fired on unarmed protestors, killing as many as 20 and wounding dozens. In retaliation, local Iraqis attacked a convoy of US military contractors, killing four. The US then launched a full attack on Fallujah to regain control, which left perhaps 700 Iraqis dead and the city virtually destroyed.

According to press reports last weekend, Fallujah is now under the control of al-Qaeda affiliates. The Anbar province, where Fallujah is located, is under siege by al-Qaeda. During the 2007 surge, more than 1,000 US troops were killed pacifying the Anbar province. Although al-Qaeda was not in Iraq before the US invasion, it is now conducting its own surge in Anbar. For Iraq, the US liberation is proving far worse than the authoritarianism of Saddam Hussein, and it keeps getting worse. Last year was Iraqs deadliest in five years. In 2013, fighting and bomb blasts claimed the lives of 7,818 civilians and 1,050 members of the security forces. In December alone nearly a thousand people were killed. I remember sitting through many hearings in the House International Relations Committee praising the surge, which we were told secured a US victory in Iraq. They also praised the so-called Awakening, which was really an agreement by insurgents to stop fighting in exchange for US dollars. I always wondered what would happen when those dollars stopped coming. Where are the surge and awakening cheerleaders now? One of them, Richard Perle, was interviewed last year on NPR and asked whether the Iraq invasion that he pushed was worth it. He replied:

I've got to say I think that is not a reasonable question. What we did at the time was done in the belief that it was necessary to protect this nation. You can't a decade later go back and say, well, we shouldn't have done that.

Many of us were saying all along that we shouldnt have done that before we did it. Unfortunately the Bush Administration took the advice of the neocons pushing for war and promising it would be a cakewalk. We continue to see the results of that terrible mistake, and it is only getting worse. Last month the US shipped nearly a hundred air-to-ground missiles to the Iraqi air force to help combat the surging al-Qaeda. Ironically, the same al-Qaeda groups the US is helping the Iraqis combat are benefiting from the US covert and overt war to overthrow Assad next door in Syria. Why cant the US government learn from its mistakes? The neocons may be on the run from their earlier positions on Iraq, but that does not mean they have given up. They were the ones pushing for an attack on Syria this summer. Thankfully they were not successful. They are now making every effort to derail President Obamas efforts to negotiate with the Iranians. Just last week William Kristol urged Israel to attack Iran with the hope we would then get involved. Neoconservative Senators from both parties recently introduced the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013, which would also bring us back on war-footing with Iran. Next time the neocons tell us we must attack, just think Iraq.

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Ron Paul On Iraq Part 2: "The ‘Liberation’ Neocons Would Rather Forget"

Ron Paul: Government hurts the poor
Ron Paul discusses government policies and their detriment to the people they are "designed" to help.

By: TheLibertarian4life

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Ron Paul: Government hurts the poor - Video

Cancellations Outpace Enrollments As Obamacare Makes Its Debut - RPT - Ron Paul On Cavuto
Cancellations Outpace Enrollments As Obamacare Makes Its Debut - RPT - Ron Paul On Cavuto.

By: Mass Tea Party

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Cancellations Outpace Enrollments As Obamacare Makes Its Debut - RPT - Ron Paul On Cavuto - Video

Obamacare is #39;A Conspiracy Of Stupidity #39;, Ron Paul
Ron Paul Dismantles Corporate Boondoggle Known as Obamacare The Alex Jones.

By: john piere

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Obamacare is 'A Conspiracy Of Stupidity', Ron Paul - Video

Ron Paul is a Texas physician who is in his second stint in Congress. He was in the House from 1977 to 1985, and was the Libertarian Party nominee for president in 1988. He was elected again to Congress in 1996 as a Republican.

Encouraged by readers, we're checking just the facts in Texas:

We welcomed a long-look chance to describe our mission in the Austin American-Statesman.

Ron Paul's "zero" tax claim fueled No. 6 reader favorite fact check of 2012:

Ron Paul's zinger about setting the income-tax rate at zero for everyone touched off the Truth-O-Meter. Our review put him in our readers' favorite articles of 2012 for the third time.

UPDATED: Ron Paul claim about popularity of gold standard No. 7 reader favorite:

Ron Paul's flawed claim about a poll and the gold standard landed him in our top 10 reader favorite fact-checks of 2012 for a second time.

Michael Williams claim about Obama and gas prices No. 8 reader favorite:

A one-time U.S. Senate hopeful who lost his 2012 U.S. House bid before ending up in state office accounts for our readers' No. 8 favorite fact-check of 2012.

And Michael Williams aired his remark in 2011.

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Ron Paul's file | PolitiFact

RON PAUL vs. BERNANKE - AUDIT THE FED!
Subscribe (it #39;s FREE!) for more videos posted daily! http://bit.ly/Subscription-Link Congressman Ron Paul gives an opening statement and questions Federal Re...

By: FinanceAndLiberty.com

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RON PAUL vs. BERNANKE - AUDIT THE FED! - Video

Galt's Gulch, a new community in Chile inspired by one of Rand's most famous characters.

For those familiar with the works of the uber-Libertarian author and Tea Party icon, you may recall that John Galt was the cranky architect hero of her Atlas Shrugged novel.

But the project's website pictures Galt thusly, "With the oppression of the overregulated, overtaxed, war riddled and welfare riddled society consuming the world, Ayn Rand's famous protagonist character, John Galt, came to conclude that he would not use his talents to support such a society any longer...driving him to create a community where scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs and many others would come together to escape from the confines of their daily lives to not only be free...but to thrive. In today's world, it is becoming more and more difficult to find true freedom from very much the same oppressive forces Ayn Rand wrote of... which drove John Galt and others to a place where they found their freedom, success and peace of mind."

Anyway, the Economist reports, "A group of self-described anarchists, libertarians and Ron Paul supporters fleeing the crumbling world economic system have founded Galt's Gulch, a community in Chile inspired by Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and with an economy based entirely on bitcoin. Or that's the goal, anyway."

Ken Johnson, the group's founder and a former real estate agent, told the magazine that he'd like to make bitcoin the project's currency but that local farmers still prefer to earn their daily bread in the peso.

Johnson moved to Chile in 2012 and now plans to live full time at Galt's Gulch, according to his bigraphy on the project's website.

The magazine further explains, "Set in a secluded valley 17 kilometres from Curacavi, Chile, on the road between Santiago and the luxurious beach resort of Via del Mar, Galt's Gulch is a mere 45 minutes by car from the Santiago airport, but, as Mr Johnson says, "it feels like you're at the end of the Earth."Yet his goal is not isolationist, he adds. "We're not trying to hide from the world. In fact, we want people to find us.

While the fate of the project remains uncertain, the Economist does bring us up to speed on Johnson's literary tastes and habits. "Johnson admits he never finished 'Atlas Shrugged'. 'I'm not actually much of a reader,' he says. 'Watched the movie and skimmed the Cliff's Notes, though. Good stuff.' "

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What Do You Get When You Cross Ayn Rand, Ron Paul, Bitcoin And Chile? The Imagined Utopia That Is Galt's Gulch